Official: UW will ‘gladly step aside’ if community buyer for KPLU steps forward

The University of Washington will “gladly step aside” if a bona-fide offer for KPLU-FM radio is made and accepted by Pacific Lutheran University, the chair of the UW Board of Regents told U.S. Rep. Denny Heck, D-Wash., in a Dec. 22 letter.

“As you may have heard, we have recently revised our agreement with Pacific Lutheran University based on the community’s strong interest in having an independent community-based group purchase the station,” wrote board chair Bill Ayer.

“If for some reason that does not come to pass, our plan would be to proceed with the purchase in our effort to preserve an important public radio resource for our region,” Ayer added.

The pending sale of KPLU, and potential loss of its newsroom and local jazz/blues program, has generated widespread protest from listeners.

Pacific Lutheran University would receive $7 million, and $1 million in advertising/promotion, credits. The KPLU news operation would be eliminated, the fate of its locally generated jazz and blues program left uncertain. The station’s name would change. The UW’s KUOW-FM would assume responsibility for news and public affairs programming, which it has recently scaled back.

The protests have received a hostile, dismissive response from PLU President Thomas Krise. But University of Washington President Ana Mari Cauce listened and has created an opening for a community group to come forward.

Two “angels” have come to KPLU’s defense during the Christmas season.

The first was UW atmospheric sciences professor Cliff Mass. Mass was once bounced from his weekly weather segment on KUOW Radio and has found a home at 9 a.m. Fridays on KPLU, reporting through a year that has seen drought hit Olympic Peninsula rain forests, a succession of wind storms beginning in August and the snowiest December that Northwest mountains have experienced in years.

Mass sat down withPresident Cauce at Starbucks for a long discussion on why KPLU should stand by itself and not be merged with KUOW. “It was her idea to talk in person and we each paid for ourselves,” he said Monday.

The second has been Heck, who spoke for constituents of his South Puget Sound congressional district, who get plenty of radio listening time when struck in traffic in Joint Base Lewis-McChord traffic jams along Interstate 5. Heck wrote:

“As a member of Congress representing Pacific Lutheran University and the South Sound region, I strongly disagree with UW’s decision to end KPLU’s award-winning news coverage of our region and restrict 88.5 FM to jazz-only programming.

UW Atmospheric Sciences professor Cliff Mass. He talked to UW President Ana Mari Cauce about a community group buying KPLU.

“As the home of the state capital, the largest military installation on the West Coast, the site of the 2015 U.S. Open, a booming local economy and unique events, cultures and traditions, the South Sound needs an independent and reliable voice for regional news. Since 1966, KPLU has provided this voice by offering first-rate coverage by interviewing leaders, identifying new issues covering the community, and adding local context for National Public Radio stories.”

The congressman concluded, “I strongly encourage you to reconsider your decision to stop NPR coverage on KPLU. In addition, I recommend you retain the award-winning journalists and crew that made KPLU a success.”

The Pacific Lutheran University administration has evinced a communcations problem. A letter strongly critical of the KPLU sale, from the KPLU community advisory council, was sent to President Krise and PLU regents. It initially did not reach several members of the board, eliciting a strong protest from the council’s chairman Stephen Tan.

The UW quickly responded to Heck’s concerns. In his letter, Ayer puts a bit of distance between Montlake and Pacific Lutheran, writing: “It is the UW Board of Regents’ understanding that PLU decided — for reasons of their own — to sell KPLU.” The sale discussions began in January, soon after PLU President Krise effused over achievements of KPLU’s news department and contributions to the university in the station’s annual report.

Ayer acknowledged that KUOW management has been of a mind to eliminate KPLU’s news operation, on grounds that “maintaining ‘dual service’ stations is more challenging than single focus ones.”

“At the same time,” wrote Ayer, “KUOW management recognizes — as they presented to us — that its newsroom operation will need to expand in size to ensure that it can continue to cover South Sound news issues as they have been reported so well by KPLU staff over the years. Our board and KUOW understand that local news means news that affects all of our communities here in Western Washington . . .

“I want to assure you that the UW Board of Regents and KUOW understand what is at stake here.”